Beth Espey, Broadcast Journalist Broadcast journalist Beth Espey, who has three children aged seven, five and two, is one of the three women presenters on anx adio’s recently launched daily programme ‘Women Today’. She points out that the ‘glass ceiling’ question is not one a man would necessarily be quizzed about. “I think there are limitations for women, not so much a ‘glass ceiling’ but perhaps limitations posed by the choices they have to make when they have a family. They are questions a man will not be asked as it is still assumed by all too many employers that it is the woman, the mother and not the father, who will be more expected to uggle the demands of work and her career with the demands of home and children. So yes, it is the woman who is faced with making certain choices when it comes to her career.” Beth adds: “I’m incredibly lucky with the support I get from family, friends and employer but I do think there is a real distance between men and women when it comes to climbing the career ladder. It is a woman’s life that changes more dramatically when children arrive. There is the expectation that she will be the primary care giver. or a woman it is all a matter of sometimes making a choice between family and career and it does become more of a struggle for women when juggling the two, there is sometimes a sense of guilt on her part. Employers will perhaps wonder if a woman with a family is fully committed. These are factors which don’t apply so much to a man but for a woman there is always a Catch 22 situation.”
Sarah Jarvis, Marketing Manager, Sure The choices which women have to face when juggling both a career and family is echoed by Sarah Jarvis, marketing manager with telecommunications group SURE. “I’m not sure I have experienced a ‘glass ceiling’,” declares Sarah, who took 10 years out to have three children, now aged 0, 1 and 17. “I think women have been sold a bit of a dud when saying you can have it all, they make sacrifices and choices. My job is demanding, I’m required to do a huge amount of work but I cannot imagine doing that with small children. If anything has held me back it is the limit of my ambitions and juggling between the people that matter most to me, which is my family, and what they need from me and the demands of my job.
“I’m not sure men are asked to do that and I think the difference between how men work and women work transcends the ‘glass ceiling’. Do I feel I could have accomplished more in my career and become a director at board level? I made the choice to take 10 years out and bring up my kids and have no regrets. “We aren’t all City fund managers like Sarah Horlick who claimed she could really have it all, earn millions, bring up six children and never miss any of her children’s prize days.”
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